It is that time of year again, time for the  2026 100 Day Project!  Actually it began on February 22, so today is day seven.  If you are unfamiliar with The 100 Day Project, in short, it originated as a Yale University design assignment by Professor Michael Bierut in 2006 and has evolved into a global creative movement through the efforts of Elle Luna and Lindsay Jean Thompson.  It’s goal is for individuals to pick a creative endeavor and do that thing for one hundred days.  During the years that I have participated, I wrote a haiku a day, created “something” in my sketchbook every day, learned Procreate on the iPad by drawing each day, and wrote a poem a day.  Last year was the first year that was a dismal failure.  I intended to make a quilt from start to finish, but the daily tasks were not structured enough for me and I lost momentum about three weeks in.  That experience made me think long and hard about whether I was going to participate this is and if I was, what was I going to do?

At the start of February, as I began to see the announcements of the impending 100 Day Project start date, FOMO kicked in and I committed to participating this year and began to think hard about what creative discipline I would undertake.  Without a whole lot of thought, I decided that I would write some kind of blog post here each day.  I had made it through writing a hundred haiku and hundred poems in the past, surely I could write a hundred blog posts.  And then I realized that that plan wreaked of the same lack of structure that caused me to bail on the my quilt project in 2025.  I came to this realization less than twenty-four hours before this year’s project was to start.  I had about come to the point that maybe I should skip this year.  These thoughts sent me into some time of reflection.  Did I really want to give up before I’d even started?  Isn’t there something else that I could undertake for the project?  Maybe I could repeat the haiku a day.  I was having this conversation with myself while playing with random scraps of painted paper and doodles that I keep in a basket on my art table.  This year’s project all of a sudden came to me.  I am going to create minimalist collages for meditation.  In a split second, the whole thing unfolded in my mind.

The fact that I settled on collage is funny because collage is hard for me.  In my head, collage somehow equates with clutter and I don’t function well amidst clutter.  I think attaching the word “minimalist” to my collage idea made it feel more approachable.  Also, I would use only bits and pieces that I have made myself-drawn or painted.  And I would limit the number of pieces in each day’s collage to a “minimal” number, whatever that means.  There!  With less than twelve hours to spare, I had a plan!  And, I was exited to get started.

I found a journal that I made a few months ago that is the perfect size in which to collect the collages.  However, now that I am seven days in, I don’t like its cover for this project.  The pattern is too much for the minimalist vibe I am hoping to achieve.  The good thing is that the journal is made with a reverse piano hinge binding, meaning the pages are not sewn in, so I can, and will, make a new and more appropriate cover at some point.  At the moment, however, this journal functions just fine.

Finally it was time to create the collage for Day 1.

The entire process of  creating this was a meditation for me.  The forms and colors and shapes that I chose are a reflection on my day.  I did write about that in my journal and had come up with a title for this creation.  When I finished attaching the last piece, I started thinking about where on the page I was going to place the title.  Nothing I envisioned felt right.  Text on the page seemed to distract me from the image itself being the focus for meditation.  Maybe a table of contents that simply listed the page numbers and corresponding titles would be sufficient.  And then, in much the same way that this project itself came to me,  a voice said to me, “Do not title these pieces individually.”  But everything we create needs a title!  Naming it makes it real.  The voice, however, remained strong.  “No titles!”

I listened.  I reflected on this for quite awhile.

And, I agree with the voice.

Once I put a title on these pieces, they are frozen in time.  A title gives them a specific meaning and the collage itself is no longer the object of the meditation.  The meditation shifts to a reflection on the title and how the image manifests that.  In essence, the piece of art becomes static.  With no words, the collage stands on its own; it has no concrete context.  The image can continue to live and grow and become something new and different each time it is looked at.  That said, the above piece is referred to simply as Meditation No. 1.  It will be followed by Meditations 2-100.

In past years when I have undertaken The 100 Day Project, I have posted daily, either here or on social media.  I have decided that that is too much, so this year I will post here weekly instead.  I haven’t decided yet about social media.  Posting somewhere is primarily for my own accountability, but I am grateful for anyone who chooses to follow along with me.

Here are days 2-7.

Meditation No. 2, 2026

 

Meditation No. 3, 2026

Meditation No. 4, 2026

 

Meditation No. 5, 2026

 

Meditation No. 6, 2026

 

Meditation No. 7, 2026